Careening to What?

The number of deaths from pedestrian fatalities, people literally stepping into traffic, is globally growing, exacerbated by hoodies, headphones, and overall general obliviousness. More per annum deaths regularly than any major terrorist incident we can recall from 9/11 onwards, including 9/11.

So "mindfulness", consciousness, alertness, awareness, the ability to be present, to have our antennae up, to be where we are, doing what we're seeking to do are attributes that once we thought were at least largely a "given" but are under assault in our attention deficit age.

Along with lack of acuity and presence, comes the phenomenon of superficiality, another form of "lack of attention." When we "attend" to something, immerse in it, we grow in our fascination for its shades, its nuances, it's potential depth and complexity. That is when we become saturated in that discipline or area of expertise, it becomes part of who we are. This is no longer foppery, or flummery, it's real, and everyone who encounters us, can experience it and benefit from it.

Over-spiced food rather than balanced spices and flavors, overwrought dramatic performances rather than emotional insight, histrionics rather than gravitas on the political stage, hysteria rather than emotional courage and vulnerability in our personal relationships, all of these and more, the gargoyles of thoughtless excess, render us less able to distinguish, to discern, to be appreciatively attentive.

And then we run the danger of being "road kill" either literally or as one-dimensional commodities in an age begging for and desperately needing multi-faceted creative expertise.